Math versus middle school girls -- a new handmade book

Girls aren't good at math. Right? Wrong. Middle school makes girls hate math. At least, it makes them lose the confidence and curiosity that helps boys like math. As Mary Pipher writes in Reviving Ophelia:

Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence...[Their] IQ scores drop and their math and science scores plummet. The lose their resiliency and optimism ...and become more deferential, self-critical and depressed.

A few weeks ago, I was helping my favorite 13-year-old with her geometry assignment. She is smart and naturally curious. But she faced her homework with dread, convinced that she'd fail before she even started.

She inspired me to make this small book. Women/girls are often compared to empty vessels, for biological and social/sexist reasons. My book Broken Vessels features shards of vases and faces against a background of graphs and equations.